Tuesday Seminar – 23 November

Do people vote to avoid disapproval? A study of partisan pressure and social norms in Austria

Maxime Coulombe (Université de Montréal),
André Blais (Université de Montréal)
Ruth Dassonneville (Université de Montréal)

Recent studies have highlighted how descriptive and injunctive norms matter for turnout. We aim in this research to expand our understanding of these relationships in two ways. First, we use discussion network data from an original question module in the Austrian National Election Study. This allows us to test whether previous findings observed in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom regarding social norms hold in a different political context. Second, we use a different question to measure injunctive norms by asking respondents whether their political discussants would disapprove if they abstained. Our results suggest that descriptive norms are related with turnout, but we find no evidence that disapproval expectations (injunctive norms) matter for turnout.

Contact Semih Çakır if you would like to participate in the seminar.

This content has been updated on 17 December 2021 at 2 h 17 min.